10-10-10 Week One, Getting Organized

Today marks the one week anniversary of my first real diet expedition since the 10th grade.  Don't get me wrong, every year my New Year's Resolution includes "Go on a diet."  Or at the very least "Eat Healthy."  But I have very little self-discipline in the area of dieting and I have never really taken that particular item on my to-do list seriously.  As a rule follower, I take great satisfaction in breaking the rules that don't really matter.  And Dieting rules don't really matter.

Unless of course, I actually need to lose some weight.  So this week, this is what I did:

Day one and two, I tried to keep track of my calories in my phone and keep them at 1300 calories a day.  I was mostly successful at this.  But I whined.  I cried.  I shook with low blood sugar.  I dreamt about cake (and I don't even like cake).  I dragged my feet and basically just took the whole thing NOT in stride and with an overabundance of drama...to the point that my sometimes-supportive husband was taking bets against my dieting success.  Thanks, hon.  

I quickly realized that simply counting calories was not going to work for me.  I am an over-thinker as it is, and calorie counting just made my head hurt and made me grumpy.  So, on day three, I decided to get organized, stop relying on the internet (which we all know isn't reliable) and go to the true source of undisputed knowledge...the library.  

After perusing the aisle of diet books, and feeling a bit like a dieting-deer-in-the-headlights, I chose a couple books that looked promising - a Jillian Michaels book and one written by two holistic doctors - and read them that night.

The absolute truth...every one of these.

Day four I wrote out my plan based loosely on what I read in the books (my fat-burning style apparently is mixed?  I like protein AND carbs?  I shouldn't eat sugar...I should exercise...okay.)

I did some sprints and lifted weights (which is sooo much better than running long, slow runs...trust me I know - I trained for a marathon last year and lost not one pound).

All week I ate the same salad for lunch just so I wouldn't have to think about it.  Then I went and bought the following:  Beef jerky, rotisserie chicken, broccoli and cabbage slaw, apples, high fiber wheat bread, stevia, almond milk for smoothies, protein powder, a carton of egg whites, salsa and tomatoes, low fat margarine (I had been eating butter on my toast every morning - all those calories!!), and a huge bag of frozen stir fry veggies.  Just having the right foods on hand makes such a difference!

I cut out my five-cups a day of coffee habit to one cup in the morning, and then switched to green tea in the afternoon.

I am getting 8 hours of sleep at night (no netflix for me...though the new JK Rowlings book may be a temptation to stay up).

Day five I woke up with energy!  I went to bed with energy!!  Honestly I was blaming my thyroid, but maybe it was the coffee, or the butter on my toast, or the sugar...

Day six I realized that pickles have zero calories.  If I pay no attention to water weight and hyper-tension, I could totally live off of pickles and vitamins, right?

Last night I ran into a challenge - I cook for my three growing boys and my metabolically blessed husband and I made them beef stroganoff with real beef, real sour cream and real egg noodles.  I hadn't planned ahead my own meal and didn't feel like eating one tablespoon of stroganoff,  which is about the serving size I could have had. So I stir fried some broccoli slaw and cabbage and chopped rotisserie chicken in a tablespoon of teriyaki.  It was yummy, but I had broccoli slaw and cabbage and chicken for lunch, only in salad form.  So it was a little redundant.  But slowly, but surely I am getting organized, I feel better, I am starting new habits.  9 weeks to go and my bet is on me! (for now)